


Deck the Halls

by aces_low



Series: Unlocked Doors [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Christmas Decorations, Fluff and Humor, Hanukkah Decorations, M/M, Making Out, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 07:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13026156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces_low/pseuds/aces_low
Summary: The guys have a surprise waiting for them when they get home from class.Written for Gen Kill Holidays - Day 4 - Decorations





	Deck the Halls

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gen Kill Holidays - Decorations
> 
> Also a part of the Unlocked Doors series.
> 
> Do not need to have read Unlocked Doors for this story to make sense.
> 
> If you have read it, this takes place between 'Things are Better...' and 'Steady as we Go'
> 
> Ray is a Sophomore  
> Nate and Brad are Juniors
> 
> This is not meant to be a representation of the real men, just based on the characters of the HBO series.

“I hate this part of the year,” Kocher grumbles as he and Nate walk out of their Political Theories class toward their house. “We take a few days off for Thanksgiving and then all the professors act like the end of the world is coming and they shove twenty things at us at once.”

Nate nods. Sure, this project that they have to work on – along with the paper they’re expected to write and the final exam they’ll have to study for, not to mention everything they’ll have to do for their other classes – has been on the syllabus all year, but it does feel like they always pile everything on at the end.

They talk about their project as they walk, until Kocher looks up and over, yelling out to whatever is in front of them.

Nate looks up and sees Brad and Poke about a block away, looking at something on Brad’s phone, until Kocher’s yelling startles them enough to look back. Poke nods at them and Brad pockets his phone as they approach.

“Don’t you have class?” Kocher asks Brad as the four of them continue on toward their house.

Brad shakes his head. “Cancelled. Apparently, professor Dowdy isn’t ready to come back from vacation.”

“Lucky you,” Kocher says.

As they come up to the house, Poke takes the lead, not even pretending to pull out his keys as he opens the door. Nate can’t do more than roll his eyes, not that he made any effort to lock the door this morning either.

Nate isn’t even at the door before he hears Poke say, “oh, what the fuck?”

He figures out what Poke’s problem is when he steps inside, stopping short when he’s accosted by their fully decorated living room – which had not been decorated when he’d left this morning.

Brad sighs. “Ray,” he calls out and Nate narrows his eyes at him.

Only, apparently, Brad’s accusations aren’t unfounded, as a moment later, Ray walks into the living room from the kitchen, grinning wildly and holding a large, empty box.

“We really gotta start locking this door,” Kocher mutters behind Nate.

“Hey, guys, do you like it?” Ray asks, spreading his free arm out for them to take in their decked out living room.

There are lights strung up all along the wall, leading all the way around and through the hallway. Two large nutcrackers have been placed to bracket the seating area, one on the open side of the couch, the other next to the armchair. Cutout snowflakes have been hung all over the wall. There’s a menorah in the middle of the coffee table, and ribbons are running along any surface they can be hung from, ranging from silver and blue to gold and red and green. There’s a small, plastic tree shoved into the corner, only about three feet high, decorated with colorful lights and ornaments. And there’s a wreath, leaning against the wall, covered in pine branches and berries, clashing slightly with blue ribbons with stars of David all over them and gold ribbons with reindeer silhouettes.

Nate is a little bit speechless as he looks around the room, but he clears his throat after a minute and says, “Ray, how…why?”

“My mom sent me this huge box of decorations and Walt told me if I strung up another thing of lights in our room he’d hang me by them. I figured you guys had more than enough space for it all,” Ray explains, walking over to Nate to kiss him hello.

“And your mom also just happened to have one of these at home?” Brad asks, walking over to study the surprisingly nice looking menorah.

Ray rolls his eyes. “After the embarrassment of last year, she went out and got one.”

Nate grins, remembering Ray coming to their dorm around this time last year, holding a large, stuffed Santa Claus and a Christmas wreath with red and green ribbons all around it. Nate had promptly informed Brad’s new friend that the Colbert family is, in fact, Jewish.

“Oh, also, someone hang this up on the front door,” Ray directs, walking back over to the wreath that is leaning against the wall, and picking it up as he sets the box in his arm down.

“Don’t tell us what to do with the decorations in our own house,” Poke says, though he still takes the wreath when Ray holds it out to him.

“My mom made it,” Ray says as an explanation of why he doesn’t care about Poke’s opinion.

Poke rolls his eyes and hands the wreath to Kocher.

“C’mon, let me show you guys the rest of the house,” Ray says, nodding his head toward the hallway.

“There’s more?” Kocher asks dubiously, studying the wreath in his hands.

Nate shrugs off his coat and hangs it up before he and Poke follow Ray down the hallway. Sure enough, it’s not just lights he’s strung up. The bathroom door has a large, cardboard snowman smiling at them on it, Kocher’s door has a large Christmas tree, Poke’s door has a Santa face hanging up, and Brad’s door has a large dreidel. There are more paper snowflakes stuck to the wall between each room.

Poke doesn’t comment, just goes into his room and closes the door behind him. Ray shrugs and takes Nate’s hand, leading him back into the living room where Kocher has the front door open and is attempting to hang the wreath up, and Brad is wrestling with some ribbon that his long legs have apparently been trapped by.

Ray leads Nate into the kitchen, revealing more decorations. There are gingerbread men everywhere, from ribbons with little gingerbread men and women lining the cabinets, to what Nate can only assume are salt and pepper shakers in the form of gingerbread men. There’s also a large magnet that’s taken over most of their refrigerator that says, ‘Happy Challah Days!’

“How did you have time to do all this?” Nate asks, following Ray through the kitchen. “None of us could have been gone more than two hours.”

Ray scoffs. “Please, indoor decorations are easy, this is nothing compared to what we always used to do at home, it’s the outdoor decorations that can be a bitch.”

“Still, you didn’t skip class to do all this, did you?”

Ray avoids his eyes as they walk toward Nate’s bedroom door, which he can see has been adorned with a large cardboard picture of mistletoe.

“Ray,” he chides, pulling him back to make him meet his eyes.

“It was just one class, and all we were gonna do was work on our papers today, I didn’t miss anything important.”

Nate frowns at him but Ray is already pulling him through his bedroom door.

Ray has strung up more white lights in here. They create an almost warm glow in his otherwise darkened room and he grins as he looks around.

“You like the decorations, right?” Ray asks, voice smaller and smile not quite as wide as it had been a moment before.

There’s a vulnerability there that Nate doesn’t understand at first until things begin to click together in his head.

This isn’t just some kind of weird prank, this means something to Ray. His mom sent him a box of decorations that could fill a small house and a dorm room, and apparently, it’s nothing compared to what they do at home. This is important to Ray, he’s not sure if it’s some kind of tradition between his mom and him, or if it’s just his favorite part of the holidays, but he does know that it’s important.

So, he wraps his arm around Ray and hugs him into his chest. “I love it,” he says, before kissing Ray’s forehead.

Ray smiles up at him, open and innocent for just a moment before his grin turns into a smirk.

“Good, cause I have one more thing to show you,” Ray says, moving away from Nate’s hold and turning on the light.

Nate watches as he walks to the bed, sits down, and scoots his way to the head, then leans against the wall. Ray grins, waggling his eyebrows suggestively a few times before pointing up.

Following his gaze, Nate sees what he can only assume is real mistletoe, taped on the wall about a foot above where Ray’s head is.

He can’t help but laugh. “Really?”

Ray shrugs. “You don’t have a headboard.”

“Yeah, I was asking more about the mistletoe in general, not so much the placement of it.”

Nate moves to sit on the bed now too, kicking off his shoes before climbing up to kneel in front of Ray.

“Well, how else am I gonna make you kiss me while not dealing with the problem of having to kiss everyone else in the process. Though, I definitely did consider hanging it up in the living room just to see what happens.”

“I’m sure you did,” Nate says, spreading Ray’s knees so he can lean in better to capture his lips.

“See,” Ray says, pulling back just a fraction. “It’s working.”

“Mhm,” Nate says distracted, kissing him again. “Your magic plant has seduced me.”

Ray chuckles into the next kiss and brings his hand up to grip the back of Nate’s neck. His breath hitches before he says, “I don’t think that’s how mistletoe works.”

Nate runs his teeth lightly along Ray’s bottom lip, causing Ray to open his mouth and legs even wider.

“Should we stop and go look up how mistletoe works?” Nate asks, kissing him again, deeper this time, and pulling Ray’s legs further down the bed to make him horizontal.

Ray makes an almost whining sound, shaking his head before pulling Nate down into a more desperate kiss and Nate is done with the teasing for now too.

They’re both breathing hard, trying to touch everywhere at once while also struggling to somehow get closer.

It’s been less than a week since Ray and he had decided they were ready to go further. They’d been working up to it for almost a month and Ray had told Nate that he was ready, once everyone else had left for Thanksgiving break.

He can feel it on his skin now, the memory of that night, and he’s fairly sure Ray is remembering it too, the way he’s already panting for breath, digging his fingertips into Nate’s arms, and bringing his ankle up to wrap around Nate’s calf.

Nate is just about to push Ray’s shirt up when there’s a loud clatter somewhere followed a moment later by Poke yelling, “goddammit, Ray!”

They break apart at the commotion, both panting warm breath against the other's cheek, and Nate looks down at Ray in question, but Ray seems just as confused.

He thinks for a moment before there’s a light behind his eyes.

“He must have found the singing snowman I put in the bathroom,” Ray says, smile widening at the realization.

Ray’s laugher, most likely from picturing Poke being startled by the snowman, is loud and delighted and Nate catches himself laughing along, unable to help himself when it comes to Ray.

Nate rolls off him, to lay side by side, sure that any moment now they’ll have a severely annoyed Poke bursting into his room. But Ray just rolls further into his side, letting his laughter taper off into Nate’s neck as he wraps an arm around his middle.

Sure enough, only a moment later, Poke opens Nate’s door without knocking to glare at the two of them, as though Nate had anything to do with Ray’s decorations.

“Are there any more things I should know about that are gonna start singing to me when I have my dick out?” Poke asks, unamused, particularly by Ray bursting into another fit of laughter against Nate’s neck.

“No,” Ray says, taking a deep breath to calm himself down. “That should be the only one. Are you telling me you didn’t like him? He doesn’t just sing, Poke, he also tells jokes.”

Poke scowls and starts to leave but Nate calls out to him.

“Turn the light out, before you go,” he requests. Poke glares at him again before sighing and turning the lights out and closing the door behind him.

The room falls into the warm glow again and Ray sits up just enough for Nate to see his face, the lights are reflecting in his dark eyes and Nate brushes his thumb across Ray’s cheek, whose eyes close for a moment at the sensation.

When Ray opens his eyes back up to look at him there is that open vulnerability Nate had seen earlier and he can’t help but lean in and kiss Ray softly, moving him to lay back down.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.
> 
> Happy Holidays!


End file.
